The Million Family March:
Nuremberg with a Smiling FaceBy: Scott Rubush FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, October 18, 2000

CALL IT THE NUREMBURG RALLY with a smiling face.

That’s what happened Monday on the National Mall in Washington, when an estimated 400,000 supporters of Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam gathered for the Million Family March. Putatively an attempt to mark the fifth anniversary of the Million Man March, the ongoing events in the Middle East could not have made the event’s timing more incendiary. But the event’s organizers had little concern for diplomatic niceties. Despite the numerous paeans to “family” and “responsibility” that emanated from the lectern, the event in fact was little more than an attempt to rally the enemies of Israel during a tense moment in the Middle East.

Of course, high-profile speakers like Al Sharpton and Maya Angelou stuck to the terra firma of racial profiling and get-out-the-Democratic-Vote efforts. They left the heavy lifting to lesser-known figures like the Native American identified as “Warrior Woman”: “My brothers and sisters in Palestine-Arafat’s people-are the original people. It is not Israel. It does not belong to them [the Jews].” Warrior Woman went on to call Jews “takers of the fat” and “stealers of the land.”

“Here’s a man who has proven to the world who has proven to the world that there is a better way: free health care, free education. I could go on and on,” Ernie Longwalker said-- to the cheers of thousands - of Col. Muammar Qaddafi. Most Americans know the pro-Arafat Libyan president as the architect of the 1988 bombing of a Pan-Am passenger jet and the target of American air strikes by former President Ronald Reagan.

“Despite the attempts of the Zionist-controlled media here in America to prevent the American people from knowing the truth,” read a spokesman for the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheik Ahmad Kultaro, “you must have seen the demonstrations and anger of people around the world against the United States government that finances, arms, and gives support to the Nazi-like state of Israel that was illegally created on Palestinian land.”

Even Mr. Farrakhan himself took a break from criticizing America’s conquest of the west, lamenting the Star Spangled Banner as a “song of war” and praising Fidel Castro to say, “The madness we see in the Middle East has a basis…Where there is no justice, people begin to act savagely…There can be no lasting peace that is not structured on the principle of justice.” Got it, Israel?

All of this neglects a speech by cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, buffoonery by Columbia University’s rap-lyric-quoting professor Michael Eric Dyson, and the rant by Nicaraguan communist insurgent Daniel Ortega. Rest assured there was plenty of America-bashing to go around.

But the rampant Jew-bashing in such a prominent forum is an even greater cause for alarm. Though Palestine has long been a cause celebre of the radical left, the Middle East Peace Process has slowly given mainstream credibility to their views. What began with Hillary Clinton’s kiss of Suha Arafat and continued with the New York Times’ infamous rush to portray Palestinians as martyrs in the now-retracted caption of a prominently-placed photo began to bubble to a head on Monday. With the Million Family March, America’s creeping anti-Semitism should have become obvious to all. Taking place on the Capitol Steps and gobbling up nearly ten hours of cable television airtime, the event offered America’s leaders the opportunity to condemn this worrisome trend. Instead, scores of America’s most prominent public figures-including conservatives like radio talk show host Armstrong Williams, who spoke at the event, and Washington Times owner Sun Myung Moon, whose Unification Church was one of its sponsors - took sides in this increasingly heated conflict. They placed themselves on the wrong side of the conflict, and on the wrong side of history.

Even the “Zionist-Controlled media” gave the event favorable coverage. The Associated Press led with the headline, “Families Come Out For D.C. March.” The Los Angeles Times carried the headline, “Marchers Step Forward for Family Unity.” The Boston Globe’s banner read: “Farrakhan Tells Blacks to Beat Bias by Ballot Inclusive Rhetoric Marks D.C. Rally.” Not to be outdone, The Washington Post focused not on the anti-Semitism but on the event’s “commercialization.”

Indeed, it’s easy to be deceived by the sight of couples renewing their wedding vows and the sound of Louis Farrakhan taking a centrist tone on abortion (“You have a right to choose. Choose well the man you’re going to give yourself to…That’s pro-choice.”). Indeed, exposure to the national spotlight has forced Farrakhan and Company to soften their tone. Take away the brown shirt and the armband, and a Nazi looks just like everyone else. But let there be no mistaking: the forces of hatred gained a new foothold on the Capitol Steps this week.

It’s helpful to recall that before the Germans swallowed the poison pill of Nazism, they too had a great nation. The culture that gave the world Beethoven, Goethe, and Schopenhauer also gave the world Auschwitz and gas chambers. The Holocaust was tragic not just because it sent millions to their graves, but because it marked the crash of a great civilization into the abyss of barbarism.

Unless America recovers its sanity, we too will meet a similar fate, becoming the unpitied victims of Daniel Ortega, Fidel Castro, Muammar Qaddafi--and their anxious allies who are all too eager to destroy America from within.

Scott Rubush is a former associate editor of FrontPageMagazine.com. He also edits a daily web log at ScottRubush.com.

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